José Francisco Fernández and Alejandra Moreno Álvarez (Eds.). 2014. A Rich Field Full of Pleasant Surprises. Essays on Contemporary Literature in Honour of Professor Socorro Suárez Lafuente

Abstract

Jose Francisco Fernandez and Alejandra Moreno Alvarez (Eds.). 2014. A Rich Field Full of Pleasant Surprises. Essays on Contemporary Literature Honour of Professor Socorro Suarez Lafuente. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 177 pp. ISBN: 1443859494.This volume is a compilation of essays by twelve scholars based on various Spanish universities and institutions who initiated their research careers under the supervision of Professor Suarez Lafuente, to whom the volume is dedicated. The thematic and theoretical interconnections between these essays become the defining feature of a compilation which also attests to the variety and abundance of [Professor Suarez Lafuente's] work, as remarked the preface by Professor Carrera, Suarez Lafuente's colleague from the University of Oviedo. Each chapter thus showcases the diverse thematic and disciplinary interests of their authors, with her former PhD students paying homage to Professor Suarez Lafuente's inspiration and guidance through very different theoretical and textual paths.The chapters move swiftly across different geographical, generic and disciplinary boundaries, converging nevertheless their common reflection on contemporary identitary debates, with a special focus on gender and postcolonial issues, two of the fields which Professor Suarez Lafuente has worked more intensely, as evident her vast record of publications. Most of these analyses are applied to contemporary Anglophone literatures, although some of the chapters divert from the scope of the literary -delving on film, television, music or the visual arts- or even expand the focus outside the boundary of English Studies, which most of the contributors develop their professional activity. The title thus aptly reveals the textual and contextual richness of the collection and the diversity of theoretical foundations and fields that inform it: postcolonial, gender, cultural and media studies, among others.The volume opens with Still Postcolonial but Treading the Global Path by Jesus Varela Zapata, a comprehensive and soundly documented overview of current debates concerning the interactions of the global and the postcolonial, and a reflection of how both postcolonial critics and writers negotiate their position the global world. The following chapters flesh out some of these debates by focusing, precisely, on bodily issues the works of specific Anglophone authors. Alejandra Moreno Alvarez's chapter on the work of Rohinton Mistry and V. S. Naipaul analyses diasporic subjects in transit, focusing on bodily functions as an alternative logos through which these characters come to terms with the dislocating experience of migration. A similar emphasis on the body, this time connection to sexual identity and transgender performativity, can be found Irene Perez Fernandez's chapter Re/Articulating Identity Jackie Kay's Trumpet, where she analyses the character of Joss Moody and his permanent struggles to renegotiate his identity as a Black Scottish fe/male. Moving from literature to television, Carolina Fernandez Rodriguez offers a lucid and original discussion of contemporary Latino identities the US Representing 'Latinidades' the Global Village: The Case of Dora the Explorer. Fernandez reviews the appraisal of this figure as both a positive role model which transgresses gender and ethnic stereotypes but also its appropriation as an object of consumption which may end up perpetuating homogenising or negative views of the migrant other. Most of these chapters constitute original approaches to their respective topics, proving the ground-breaking nature of the research supervised by Professor Suarez Lafuente during her long academic trajectory. More specifically, they can be taken as a significant if only brief sample of the recent work conducted by scholars the field of Postcolonial Studies Spanish Universities, and more to the point with regards to this particular collection, by those who started their research career or currently teach at the University of Oviedo, which has historically had a pioneer role the institutionalisation of Postcolonial Studies our country. …